It should be noted that reference to the prior art herein is not to be taken as an acknowledgement that such prior art constitutes common general knowledge in the art.
Electricity or power is an essential part of modern life. In residences, in businesses, in institutions and in other locations, consumers use electricity in a variety of ways. Utilities deliver power generated by power plants through a network of transmission and distribution lines. This network is hereinafter referred to as the “power transmission and distribution grid,” “the electric grid,” “the grid” or “power grid.”
Renewable energy is a practical and environmentally conscious alternative to traditional utility production. One of the more desirable renewable sources is solar power. Solar equipment consumes no fossil fuels and generates no air pollutants. The use of solar power is generally regarded as environmentally safe. Utilities in most countries are required (or voluntarily do so) for public policy reasons to credit or actually buy excess power generated by a solar generating system from a consumer. In addition to these benefits, solar systems can provide customers with significant cost savings in the long run. As an incentive to install solar systems, government entities may provide rebates or tax deductions to customers who purchase and install solar systems.
Such programs have met with limited success for various reasons most particularly the inability of some types of energy users to curtail energy use and the lack of real-time information regarding the immediate cost of energy usage.
The use of power generated from renewable energy resources is rapidly increasing, attention is being focused on systems and methods in which such power is produced, transmitted, delivered, and consumed. The technology used in developing renewable energy resources, electricity grids and current energy infrastructure suffer from many limitations.
Furthermore, as the demand for such power increases, and regulatory requirements for use of “green” resources become more prominent there is a growing need to provide a useful alternative or at least an improvement on what has previously been done.
In recent years, concerns have been raised that high demand for electricity is taxing the capacity of existing electricity generating plants.
Furthermore, concerns regarding the availability and environmental safety of fossil and nuclear fuel are being raised. As a result of the above factors, the price of electricity has been on a path of steady increase. Likewise, the electrical utility industry has for some time laboured under the problem of supplying cost effective power to comply with system peak-demand period requirements.
Renewable energy systems have been used with gaining popularity to resolve at least partially the peak-demand issue of the power grid. For example, a solar power system may convert generated DC electricity from solar panels into AC electricity and be used to power electrical appliances. The generated DC power is also converted to AC power by an inverter so that power grid companies may purchase AC power produced.
These systems are typically being developed for the home or business which remains connected to the main electricity grid, so any electricity that your system generates above what you use is fed back into the grid. When you require more electricity than you are producing, your system imports it from the grid automatically. Your electricity bill is calculated as the difference between the amount of electricity you export from your renewable energy system and the amount you import from the grid—you only pay for the electricity you use that is over and above what your renewable energy system produces.
At present, feed-in regulations or tariffs for renewable energy exist in over 40 countries, states or provinces internationally, all involving the payment of a premium for the electricity fed into the grid from a variety of renewable energy sources. These feed in tariffs (FiT) are typically applied in two forms. A first form is a gross FiT—whereby all electricity generated from a renewable source is purchased from the generator at a generous price, with the generator buying-back any electricity they need to use from the grid. The second form of FiT is a net FiT—whereby only unused or surplus electricity is purchased from the generator.
In order to recover some of the expenses out laid in converting to a grid fed renewable energy system users are looking for ways to maximise the FiT benefit. Presently, consumers are maximising their financial benefit by improving the energy efficiency of their home to export more electricity to the grid. This could be achieved by reducing standby power consumption, switching to controlled load tariffs and minimising the use of energy intensive appliances such as air-conditioners. The fact that the FiT payment levels are performance-based puts the incentive on producers to maximise the overall output and efficiency of their system.
The problems with current domestic solar grid feed systems is that they are creating problems on the energy network regarding power quality and voltage spikes/abnormalities which requires expensive equipment to rectify it.
Furthermore domestic solar grid feed systems are reducing the amount of power that can be sold by the generators and distributors, yet the actual amount of energy produced by the generators has to remain constant due to the fluctuating nature of small scale solar energy production. This means that the power generation companies and distributors still have the same or higher network costs, yet their income from selling and distributing the power has reduced. Thus there have been increases seen in electricity bills for items such as service charges.
Clearly it would be advantageous if a renewable energy generation load compensation system, method and apparatus could be devised that helped to at least ameliorate some of the shortcomings described above. In particular, it would be beneficial for a renewable energy generation load compensation system to improve on these deficiencies in renewable energy generation for the purpose of compensating the load from the utility grid, or to at least provide a useful alternative.